Active Care Solutions

(ACS) is a cultural and faith based foster care agency run by a team of dedicated people from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

Their goal is simple – to give every child they care for the best start in life by placing them with foster parents who can provide a caring home, as well as meeting their individual cultural and religious needs. Every child deserves to grow up in a loving, nurturing family home –somewhere they can feel valued and have their own identity. That’s why ACS is the only independent fostering agency providing bespoke cultural and faith-based foster placements.

100% of Foster Parents feel that they can always contact the Social Worker or regional team

100% of Foster Parents would recommend ACS

100% of Foster Parents feel supported by ACS

Consisting of 12 registrations covering all 4 nations, FCA is one of the largest and most experienced independent fostering agencies in the country.

Foster Care Associates (FCA) has been helping people become extraordinary foster parents throughout the UK since 1994. In the year of 2022, the following Ofsted inspections took place highlighting the high quality work FCA undertake:

At the end of 2022, FCA were caring for

1698 Children

FCA Thames Valley – Outstanding. “Parent and child placements are an exceptional strength of the agency. The support is creative and practical. Foster carers are fully committed, going above and beyond to support parents to care for their young children. Parents told the inspector that they are now motivated and ambitious about their life. The faultless quality of care from foster carers has taught parents the meaning of family life and parenthood”

FCA North East – Good. “Children receive good-quality care and they are well matched with their foster families. The agency works well with a number of professionals and agencies to support foster families to provide consistent care and support to children. Feedback from professionals about the agency is complimentary”

FCA Eastern – Good. “Some children are placed with their brothers and sisters. If this is not possible, the agency sensitively supports foster families to provide children’s time with their families and significant people. This helps to ensure children retain birth family connections”

FCA North West – Good. “Children feel safe with their foster carers. Carers have been strong advocates for challenging bullying when this has occurred. Foster carers allow children to take age appropriate risks in the community and at home, including accessing the internet. One child shared how they feel able to ‘make mistakes and be given more chances”

In 2022, FCA Scotland celebrated their 20th Anniversary. On Saturday 15th October, staff and foster families came together to celebrate 20 outstanding years of dedication and commitment to making a lasting difference to their children and young people. Pictured here at the celebrations is the Registered Manager, Amanda Lindsay.

Fostering People is a highly accredited community based fostering agency with Fostering People England receiving a rating of ‘Outstanding’ in their last 3 consecutive Ofsted inspections.

In 2022, Fostering People Scotland were inspected by the Care Inspectorate and received the rating ‘very good’. The inspection report notes “Children and young people experienced warm, compassionate care from caregivers who were dedicated to ensuring that they were safe, valued, and respected within their family and community.”

At the end of 2022, Fostering People were caring for 511 children

Caz, a foster carer from Yorkshire has been fostering with Fostering People for 10 years. One of the first children she fostered was 12-year-old Britney, who lived with Caz until she was 17. Now an adult with a young family of her own, Britney accompanied Caz on a recent visit to London to share their heart-warming experience of fostering from the perspective of a foster parent, but also from the viewpoint of a young person who grew up in care.

They talk with Kate, (Towie star and wife of footballer Rio Ferdinand) about their early days of living together and the challenges, to their incredibly close relationship today.

You can hear the interview in full ‘The Rewarding Reality of Fostering with Caz and Britney’, on Kate’s podcast Blended, which is a celebration of blended families everywhere.

The Big Sing Off is the biggest and most prestigious event in the calendar for FCA, FCAS, ACS and Fostering People. It aims to be an unforgettable experience as we bring together choirs made up of our children, young people, foster parents and staff for a day of entertainment through music and song. After two years of not being able to hold The Big Sing Off, it returned on Saturday 8th October with the theme of ‘Love and Peace’ (chosen by FCA Eastern). Congratulations to the winners Rainbow Rockers from Fostering People who won singing Top of the World with a Candle for Peace (Carpenters/Shelley Murley).

Tracy Livesey Managing Director

I am proud to be able to say I am the Managing Director of the following Fostering Agencies within the Polaris Community: Clifford House Fostering, Fosterplus England, Fosterplus Scotland, ISP and Orange Grove plus the Adoption Agency - Adopters for Adoption.

The majority of the Registrations within the Agencies have experienced inspection during 2022 -2023 and we have achieved some incredible results which I know were well deserved and testament to the dedication of our foster parents, adopters and staff team – placing children at the centre of all we do.

In addition, all of the Registrations have held celebratory events for children and foster parents and one such event is the ISP Fun Day. This occurs annually and the clue is in the title - families and staff gather together from across ISP to celebrate and have fun.

This year also saw a revitalisation of the therapeutic pathway for staff and foster parents in ISP, where we have built upon our existing therapeutic model. Orange Grove have been instrumental in the creation of a trauma informed practice workshop which will be used across the community to help social workers to continue to provide high quality support to families. Clifford House Fostering are introducing the Solihull Model of Trauma Informed Practice and Fosterplus have held trauma informed practice sessions. Furthermore, Registrations have embraced students, apprenticeships, management training and involvement in research. This reflects a thirst for knowledge and further development.

Established over 35 years ago, ISP were the UKs first independent fostering agency and pioneers of therapeutic foster care. ISP have 12 fostering centres across England, all rated as “Outstanding” or “Good”

Working with children and young people with complex needs, ISP surround families with a highly trained professional team as well as in-house therapeutic fostering services, to ensure they’re fully supported at every step.

In 2022, ISP Teynham received an Outstanding Ofsted judgement with it being said that “Children benefit from living with foster carers who are empowered by the agency to provide traumainformed, attuned and loving care to children. As a result, the children experience care that helps them to heal and build on their resilience for future success.”

At the end of 2022, ISP were caring for

401 children

In 2022, ISP celebrated their 35th birthday. Teams got together to mark this milestone for ISP

Orange Grove are focused on building relationships that encourage foster parents and young people to grow and develop – individually and together.

At Orange Grove Foster Care, the aim is to tailor foster care services to every foster parent, ensuring that whenever they need support it’s always on hand, helping them do the right thing for the children and young people they look after. Orange Grove has been providing quality foster care to thousands of children for over 20 years.

In 2022, the following inspections took place:

Orange Grove North West – Outstanding. “Children experience an excellent quality of warm and nurturing care that enables them to settle quickly and establish healthy routines. Some children have spent a major part of their lives with the same foster carers. This enables children to enjoy stable relationships that significantly enhance their life chances”

Orange Grove StaffordshireGood. “The agency has excellent support available to carers, through dedicated supervising social workers and family support workers. Carers and children are offered wraparound support when needed”

Orange Grove North West celebrating their Ofsted

Clifford House are dedicated to changing the lives of children separated from their birth families in the West Midlands. As a fostering agency with 25 years’ experience, Clifford House are well placed to make positive differences to the foster children in their care. One of the most important things is creating a strong sense of family in everything they do.

Clifford House are small enough to known their families and children well and have a friendly and professional team who provide foster parents with the training and support needed to make a real difference.

At the end of 2022, Clifford House were caring for

48 children

In 2022, Clifford House were rated Good by Ofsted. “Children’s behaviour is managed well, with guidance and support from supervising social workers. Carers respond to children’s complex behaviours well. This is because supervising social workers encourage them to reflect on their responses to children. Supervising social workers and foster carers can work with advice and guidance from the in-house therapist. This joined-up approach ensures that children are actively safeguarded”

Fosterplus was founded in 1996, giving them over 25 years’ continuous experience as an independent fostering agency. Fosterplus train and support foster parents across England and Scotland, in order to provide safe and loving homes for vulnerable children. Every one of their offices is rated ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Good’ by Ofsted, which reflects their dedication in providing positive outcomes to children and families.

In 2022, Fosterplus Long Eaton were rated Good by Ofsted. “Children’s cultural needs are identified and considered at the beginning, when deciding which family a child may wish to live with. One child was able to live with an Eritrean family that could speak the child’s language and share cultural practices.

At the end of 2022, Fosterplus were caring for

88 children

At the end of 2022, Fosterplus Scotland were caring for 129 children

Adopters for Adoption works hard to try to retain its place within the adoption sector as an agency that is known for its open-minded recruitment of a diverse range of adopters and the placement of older children and sibling groups. They try to ‘rule in’ rather than ‘rule out’ prospective adopters at an early stage and to avoid making assumptions about prospective adopters without getting to know more about them first.

As the name suggests, people who had experience of the process and are successful adopters were involved in defining their values and developing the service. Additionally as part of a wider, longstanding children’s services’ community Polaris, Adopters for Adoption continues to draw upon the wider and collective years of experience in fostering and family support to ensure that children can enjoy a stable loving family. To this end, Adopters For Adoption are committed to making the experience as positive and timely as it can for prospective adopters, without compromising on the quality of assessments in order to provide secure and loving families for children who require adoption.

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“Claire really has been the best support through our adoption process, she has put us at such ease whilst giving us all of the information we need, never making us feel overwhelmed or bombarded with information. We are so thankful we have her as a social worker. She has been an incremental part of our learning about adoptive children but also birth families, and we are just really thankful for all of her support and help.”

At the end of 2022, 41 children placed in 2022